The Challenges of Pesach and Shabbos in the "Bereishis" Spacecraft Project - Rabbi Shraga Noson Dahan shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to “Lema’an Yishme’u,” a podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 A few years ago, we crashed into the moon. We tried very, very hard to land, but it didn’t work out. But the challenge of getting to the moon raised a great many fascinating questions. There were religious engineers and religious crew members involved, and above all, they wanted everyone to feel connected to the project. So they also gave Shabbos observance a very important place in it. This was a spacecraft traveling to the moon for two months. Navigating it, planning a route, meeting challenges, saving the spacecraft—with several Shabboses along the way—is no simple matter. I’ll talk about that whole process. I got drawn into the entire world of space. Today I advise many, many organizations. Just today, there was a space engineer I’d worked with on a very complex project two months ago, involving teenagers who wanted to launch satellites in the United States through one of the satellite programs. They were also given various benefits, as were educational institutions. It’s simply a fascinating subject, because space is something we can’t touch, and it interests us. But what’s interesting is that, through that lens, we can also learn halachos that apply to us. Because you might ask, “Why? What does space have to do with me? I’m here. Tell me how to kasher my kitchen, how to kasher my induction cooktop, how to…” Those are just questions people called me with on the way here. “Do I need to leave the kettle on? How…?” But the truth is that looking at space can teach us about the halachos of Shabbos in our everyday lives, just in a much more interesting, colorful, and varied way. I’ll give you an example: selling chametz. Selling chametz in space. Does the sale of chametz there take effect or not? That’s a very important question, right? What’s the halacha of selling chametz? Can—

02:07 Speaker 2 Can we sell property to a non-Jew who has no access to it? Say Eytan Stibbe is on a spacecraft, and he wants to be careful not to benefit from any chametz. Let’s say he didn’t think of giving it as a gift to the non-Jews with him, so he arranged to sell his chametz. He went to the arrangements office at Cape Canaveral—I don’t know where he went—and signed a form for the sale of chametz. Does that sale have any validity at all? People have discussed the legal question independently of selling chametz: There’s an organization that sells plots of land on the moon. Does that have any legal validity? It’s interesting because the issue has been discussed from many angles. Anyone who’s learned the laws of possession in Tractate Bava Basra knows that when someone has ownership of something, or a claim to it, and demonstrates that he possesses it while you claim it’s yours, the burden of proof is on the person seeking to take it from the other. There are other laws as well. But there’s another question about selling chametz: you have no access to the place at all. I can tell you that for many years I headed the halacha department of the Military Rabbinate, and we dealt with selling the army’s chametz. Selling chametz in the army is a very complex process, though for years it seemed simple. The non-Jew would come in. By the way, I think he’s now a mayor—or a deputy mayor, or a former mayor—in Daliyat al-Karmel. In the past he was a soldier. He told me that when he was young, he happened to be walking through military headquarters. Rabbi Goren saw him and said, “Soldier, come here.”

03:49 Speaker 2 So he came over. Rabbi Goren asked, “What are you doing?” He said, “I’m on my way to the office.” “Excellent. Are you Jewish?” “No.” “Listen, go home. I’ll give you a day’s leave—here’s authorization from the chief of staff. Come back tomorrow, we’ll give you money, and you’ll buy the army’s chametz.” He said, “Really?” “Yes, go home.” He came back, they explained what selling chametz was, and ever since, year after year—for twenty-eight, thirty, by now around forty years—he’s been buying the army’s chametz. And… [unclear] we came in, and I wanted to see what was involved. You look at the chametz sale—and this happens in many places—and see that it hasn’t kept up with changing realities. I’ll give you an example. I’m now selling chametz at one of the Mossad’s or Shin Bet’s strategic facilities. Do I really intend a sale that lets the non-Jew enter and take chametz from there whenever he wants? Never. He won’t even know what’s there or how much there is, and I would never give him what’s there. So what kind of sale is that? A fictitious sale? Let’s briefly get some clarity on selling chametz. We’ll talk a little about chametz, Shabbos, Yom Tov, the holidays, and some interesting questions, but first, a brief word about selling chametz. What gives the sale its validity? The Maharam of Rothenburg already raises it around the 1200s or so—he already raises the idea of selling chametz. It’s cited later by the later authorities; the Terumas Hadeshen brings it, and the Beis Yosef brings it as well. One reason for selling chametz is to prevent a major financial loss. Another point they make is that, for the sale of chametz—

05:34 Speaker 2 If you want the sale to be valid, take the chametz and have the non-Jew take it. Then there’s no problem with his buying it, even if we tell him, “You should know that if you take good care of the chametz, we’ll also be willing to buy it back afterward.” That isn’t considered a conditional sale. It isn’t considered a declaration that effectively cancels the sales contract. Why? Because then it really is a genuine purchase. But the idea, if you look at what the Terumas Hadeshen says, and what the Mabit and the Maharid also bring, was to remove the chametz from the Jew’s possession and bring it to the non-Jew. Then the sale of chametz takes effect. And I understand why it takes effect: the non-Jew actually took the chametz. But now we see a different reality: it stays with us. Why? Because they found a workaround. What was it? We sell to the non-Jew—as the Magen Avraham later discusses—what? We give the non-Jew the place. We sell him the place where the chametz is, too. Now, perhaps you’ll say this violates lo sechanem? Does it? We don’t intend for him to live there. We intend to give him possession of the property so that the sale can take effect, but we don’t intend for him to actually live there. So the sale takes effect; it’s a serious sale. In a moment I’ll show you why it’s serious, too. And from then on, even though the chametz remains with us, perhaps we can make the sale. We need to give him access, or the option of access, to the things he owns there. In other words, it could be—

07:24 Speaker 3 Technically, he can—

07:26 Speaker 2 That the sale is conceptual, not technical—conceptual or technical. Say he can enter, but he doesn’t have authorization. I have a question.

07:32 Speaker 3 Say I’m flying abroad now, and I’ve sold my chametz.

07:35 Speaker 2 Yes.

07:36 Speaker 3 I give the key to someone who’s staying in Israel.

07:39 Speaker 2 Yes.

07:39 Speaker 3 And my understanding is that if the non-Jew wants to come and take the chametz—

07:42 Speaker 2 Then sure, here’s the key.

07:42 Speaker 3 Because if there’s no key, and I’m abroad, how will I give him one?

07:44 Speaker 2 So, so, here—let me ask you a question. You sold your chametz to a non-Jew in Canada. A good, real non-Jew, and you live in the United States. This non-Jew has a “black visa”—is that what it’s called? He’s barred from entering America. Does the fact that he’s permanently barred from entering America—they have permanent bans, too—mean he has no access and the sale is fictitious? No. He can send someone on his behalf, right? Why? Because it’s his. He can do whatever he wants with it, however he wants, subject to the legal restrictions that prevent him from reaching or entering the place. But I really did sell it to him. In other words, if today I sell the chametz at Shin Bet or Mossad facilities, including the property, the sale takes effect. Why? The—

08:40 Speaker 4 In other words, I have conceptual access.

08:43 Speaker 2 No. First of all—

08:44 Speaker 4 A looter.

08:44 Speaker 2 I have—yes, I have others who can give me access, and besides, there’s no problem. I’ll give you access too. Meet the standards. Oh, you don’t meet them. Fine, but if you did, I’d let you in. No, no, that won’t be enough. It won’t be enough. Anyone who has handled security clearance knows that isn’t enough. You know. No, but he’s saying: Who will be the shliach? It will have to be a Jew. But, but... No problem, no problem. No, there is a problem. There is. Do you know what the problem is if the shliach is Jewish? What? What? What, what? Oh, so that means that, theoretically, there is a way in. By the way, by the way, what’s the problem with the shliach? He asked an important question. What’s the problem if the shliach is Jewish? There’s one issue with responsibility for chametz when there’s a shliach. He bears responsibility for chametz belonging to a non-Jew, right? That’s what it says in halachah.

09:44 Speaker 4 I don’t think that...

09:45 Speaker 2 Then it wouldn’t lead to a transgression. He’s a non-Jew. But, but, but the Shulchan Aruch says that if you bear responsibility, that nullifies the whole thing—or nullifies the whole thing—or... Here, it’s already after the sale.

10:00 Speaker 4 You have an issue of ownership.

10:02 Speaker 2 Of ownership. So it’s a question of responsibility. I’ll just give you an example. That year, we decided to be very, very thorough with the sale, to really make it valid and real. In the middle of the holiday, one of the large freezers at an IDF base died. It’s hard to... No, so it’s very simple. The sergeant major comes to the kashrus supervisor and says, “Give me the key to the...” You know, it was a freezer holding dough for the kitchen—prepared baguettes, prepared croissants, a very large quantity. He says, “Give me the key, I...” I don’t know why. “There’s a problem with the freezer motor. We want to fix it.” The supervisor says, “What are you talking about? That’s a storeroom that isn’t ours. And the order says the kashrus supervisor doesn’t give the key to anyone, so nobody goes in by mistake.” He says, “Come on, give me the key. We have to fix it. Everything in there is going to spoil.” It won’t spoil. Let it spoil—it belongs to the non-Jew, not to you. Why do you care? Anyway, they realize what’s going on and call us. What do you say? Exactly. Now, the truth is, if I care, I undermine the entire sale. If I care, that means the sale isn’t a sale. So I call the non-Jew and say, “Listen.” He says, “What are you telling me? I don’t care.” He says, “For years, nobody ever told me there was a problem with this.” There’s no problem, but you should know that it’s yours. If the army wants to settle up afterward, they’ll settle up, but right now it’s yours. If it spoils, it’s yours. I just wanted to let you know. “I don’t care.” He got nervous. I mean, he called me seven times: “Well, did they get there? Did they fix it?” And... No, he understood that the sale was real, so that’s excellent. I told him, “This shows that the sale took effect in previous years too, retroactively,” but suddenly...

11:48 Speaker 2 He understood it was his, and then fixing it really became a favor to him, not to me. So there are many, many details to get right in the sale. And here you really are asking: Someone sells chametz on the ISS, on NASA’s space station. What kind of sale is that? Who gets up there? Who gets up there?

12:07 Speaker 4 Are there non-Jews up there?

12:08 Speaker 2 There are. Listen, I’ll tell you. A year ago I traveled to France for several projects I was working on, and they called me. While I was—passing through Amsterdam, Gishko[?] called me and said, “Listen, someone is looking for you. Speak to him urgently.” He says, “I bought—listen, this is a true story. You can Google it afterward. I bought a ticket to space through the Axiom 2 project.” Remember, Eytan Stibbe went up on Axiom 1. And sure enough, I saw that he had bought a ticket for Axiom 2 and really intended to fly. He wants to be a Jew in space. He doesn’t just want to fly; he wants to observe the Jewish mitzvos in space. So from his perspective—

13:03 Speaker 4 Does he observe them?

13:04 Speaker 2 What?

13:04 Speaker 4 Does he observe them?

13:05 Speaker 2 He wants to. I don’t know. No, I don’t know. I’m not his rabbi.

13:10 Speaker 4 Not his appraiser.

13:12 Speaker 2 But he wanted to, and it matters to him. What do you care if that’s where it comes from? What do you care if that’s how he connects? Excellent. It matters to him. There are lots of questions. Now look, a real question. I’m asking you: When do you put on tefillin in space? When do you put on tefillin?

13:33 Speaker 4 Maybe after nighttime?

13:35 Speaker 2 What? Daylight.

13:36 Speaker 4 You go by the hours of the...

13:38 Speaker 2 Daylight. So here’s the thing. Tefillin have a set time. When is the time to put on tefillin? When there’s daylight, right? When there’s daylight. How long is there daylight? You have to know that—I’m not talking now about a spacecraft going to the moon. That flies at thirty-six thousand kilometers an hour. But NASA’s space station travels at twenty-seven thousand three hundred kilometers an hour. That means it makes an orbit every hour and a half. Day, night, day, night, day, night, day, night. What day is it today? I’ll tell you a true story, not about the space station. A true story right here in our physical, stable world. One day a woman calls me. She’s about to fly to France. She gets to—well, she did a bedikah for taharah. It didn’t work. She did a hefsek; it didn’t work. No, the hefsek. The hefsek didn’t work out. She calls me and says, “Rabbi, it’s Wednesday, and I need to do a hefsek now. I did one, but I missed the time; sunset is in a minute. Can I do a hefsek in another ten minutes?” I told her, “At sunset, you can’t. Do it tomorrow; do it again.” She says, “No, but I’m boarding a plane to France now,” and it’s summer, “and as soon as we take off, I’ll suddenly see Wednesday’s sun again.” Look, we’re not talking about Japan or China. Right here in Israel it’s very simple. The sun sets, you take off, and you see the sun again for another hour and a half, because you’re flying west, and you’re gaining altitude. In fact, within five minutes of climbing, you suddenly see the sun again even though it has already set. In other words, halachically her day has already ended, and now she’s going back into that day. So that could be a startup. Right? A service for the benefit of...

15:32 Speaker 2 Hefsek taharah, what?

15:34 Speaker 4 A cloud-based subscription service.

15:36 Speaker 2 So really, really, really—this really would make a good Shavuos-night class. If people are looking for a class to wake them up, this is the sort of thing. But, but... Let’s get back to it. But this question comes up in the Ben Ish Chai and in Igros Moshe. In Igros Moshe there’s a question about someone who wants to daven Minchah. The sun has already set, but he says, “I’ll get into an elevator, go up to the 107th floor, and I’ll see the sun.” So can he? The Ben Ish Chai writes in—I don’t remember which book. There are two books, and one of them is attributed to him; I don’t remember. But he writes there that if someone goes up to the top of the mosque, to the top of the muezzin’s tower, he’ll be able to see it too. They had a tall tower in the area. He says, “I’ll go up the tower, see the sun again, and then I’ll be able to daven Minchah.” So how do we actually determine the times? It’s very interesting that our times depend very much on the particular mitzvah. Prayer follows the time at ground level. This halachah is very, very important. You’re flying now, flying from one place to another. It happens all the time. Someone flying from the United States to Israel has that pressure to daven. Suddenly you’re over France—usually the first part of Europe you reach is France—and if you raise the window shade, with the flight attendants’ permission, you’ll already see the sky starting to brighten. Immediately: “Shacharis, Shacharis, Shacharis!” Folks, you’re at ten thousand feet—not ten thousand, sorry, ten thousand meters, almost thirty-two thousand feet, sometimes even forty thousand. Open the app and see what’s happening down below, in Paris, in Normandy. What time is it? What time is sunrise? What time

17:43 Speaker 2 The time for tefillin? You’ll see that it isn’t the time for tefillin at all. Your time is determined by what happens at ground level, and so you might put on tefillin with a blessing when it isn’t time for tefillin at all—not even the time for tefillin—and you’ve caused yourself to say a blessing in vain. The source for this is “in all your dwelling places”: mitzvos depend on location, on the ground. This is brought in Yaskil Avdi and in Tiferes Yisroel. There’s also a special booklet that Rabbi Alpern wrote after—Tiferes Yisroel writes about it too, but it’s also brought in that booklet, called Mishak Shamayim [unclear]. After Ilan Ramon’s crash, he wrote a book about many halachos connected with this. Rabbi Oz Natan [unclear] discusses this ruling too. And it also appears in [unclear]; look at those responsa about prayers and times that depend on the ground. Everything connected with sunrise and sunset depends on the ground. In other words, what’s happening at ground level? The same applies to a woman in a tower; this is practical halacha. A woman on the 107th floor who wants to perform a hefsek taharah needs to check what’s happening down... We had a case like that with... Choose whichever location you want, but the time follows the place where everyone lives. “Ah, but I have mountains.” A true story. All right, that’s another story, but now I’ll tell you a true story. Listen, it’s an amazing story. A bris in Jerusalem: a baby was born at Shaare Zedek, on the seventh or eighth floor—I don’t remember which floor it is now; they keep changing floors—right at twilight. When is his bris? Do we go by Jerusalem? Now there are two lines of reasoning. One says to go by the actual location. That is, if it’s the seventh floor, go down to the ground floor of Shaare Zedek

19:48 Speaker 2 and check the horizon there. At ground level, not up in the tower: would you have seen the sunset from the grounds of Shaare Zedek at that time? Folks, we’re talking about minutes. It really affects which day the bris takes place—whether it’s on the eighth day or later. It’s especially relevant when Shabbos is involved, because the question can be whether to hold the bris on Friday or Sunday. If it’s twilight, it’s automatically postponed to Sunday. So do we go by ground level or by the city’s horizon, the highest point in the city? If we go by the highest horizon in the city, what used to be the tops of the trees is now the tops of buildings, and we look for the tallest building. We brought this question to several leading rabbis, and they laid out all the opinions for us. In the end, the mohel himself, who follows Yemenite custom, said, “Whenever there’s a doubt, we’ll do it on Sunday.” But we also checked... Holyland is the tallest building on Jerusalem’s horizon today, and we checked the horizon from its top and from ground level. Very technical matters, practical halacha, because there are rulings and poskim on both sides. The question is how you rule. So some mitzvos depend on ground level, while others depend on what you can see. What can you see? That’s very important. Putting on tefillin depends... Take tzitzis, for example: tzitzis depends on sight. If you can see, you say the blessing; if you can’t, you don’t. Why? Because it says, “And you shall see it.” Now the mitzvah depends on this at the technical level, the technical level. And Seder night and Pesach have very, very particular and interesting laws—very interesting ones. I could give you a whole lecture now on the Beresheet spacecraft and the challenges of Shabbos in space, but I chose to raise

21:35 Speaker 2 these questions and talk instead about some unusual things we’ve never discussed. We’ll discuss them here for the first time, and, with Hashem’s help, write about them tomorrow or the day after. There’s a weekly column in Israel Hayom about Judaism and halacha. This is technology. We’ll write about it. And Seder night. I’ve written down a few possible implications here. First, searching for chametz. Say someone is in a spacecraft and wants to search for chametz. When does he search? When did our Sages institute the search? On the evening of the fourteenth. When is the evening of the fourteenth? First, there’s the question of timing. So we have the macro and the micro—we’ll talk like economists. Macro and micro. The macro question is: what day is it for you at all? What day are you on? That’s how the question was discussed regarding Shabbos, and regarding the festivals too. Since you don’t have regular times, you don’t have regular festival dates. Sunrise and sunset every hour and a half aren’t really a regular cycle. So you establish a particular time for yourself and follow it. What is that particular time? It’s the time on your watch. You took off and were accustomed to a particular time zone—say, Cape Canaveral in the United States. Incidentally, for Shabbos, Ilan Ramon decided that he wanted to use Israel time. Rabbi Tal Wiesel [unclear] wrote something about that too, but Ramon chose Israel time. He said, “I represent the Jewish people.” He made Kiddush at our time. But it’s a time, that particular time. You’ll see that on Pesach we go by clock hours, not by the times of day—not by when things happen on the ground. It’s very interesting, and that’s the difference between Shabbos and Pesach. Pesach... Shabbos outside the atmosphere, in a place without regular sunrises and sunsets, is rabbinic.

23:30 Speaker 2 Why is Shabbos there rabbinic? We learn this from Shabbos at the pole. At the pole, where there’s no sunrise and sunset, what is the law? You follow the nearest inhabited place. Shabbos lasts twenty-six hours. When it’s Shabbos in the nearest inhabited place, we observe Shabbos too. But there’s nothing to be done about seeing the sun. What does that show? What does it show? That Shabbos there is rabbinic. Why? If this were a Torah law, would I tell someone to violate Shabbos? Certainly not. Wait. Because at the pole you have periods lasting half a year—not exactly half a year. For months at a time, you have periods when—

24:09 Speaker 5 If there were half a year of sunrise, there would be no Shabbos.

24:12 Speaker 2 No, we follow those twenty-six hours there. Why? Yaskil Avdi and the Yaavetz write that Shabbos there is simply rabbinic. Why? Because the usual conditions aren’t there, the usual pattern of sunrise and sunset. So it’s rabbinic. Then why observe it at all? So that Shabbos won’t be forgotten. Where did we learn about Shabbos being forgotten? In chapter 344? 342, right? In the laws of Shabbos. The Magen Avraham writes there that if someone is traveling in the desert and doesn’t know when Shabbos is, there’s a disagreement about whether he counts six days and then observes Shabbos, or observes Shabbos and then counts six days. So the conclusion is that even there Shabbos is rabbinic, but you observe it when everyone else does. Pesach, though, is a different matter. First, as far as the date goes, whichever place you establish for yourself is fine. In other words, if I’ve decided to follow Cape Canaveral or Israel, I know when the fourteenth is. What did our Sages institute? “On the evening of the fourteenth, we search for chametz by the light of a candle.” The wording is “by the light of a candle.” That means you need the date, and if I want to make use of the allowance our Sages gave, I’d also want there to be—

25:30 Speaker 5 One source of light.

25:32 Speaker 2 Darkness, so I have the contrast of the light. That contrast is an allowance. But since it isn’t clear to me that it’s night, I won’t call it night, and I’ll search without a blessing. That’s how it would seem. In the morning I need to dispose of the chametz. When do I do that? When do we dispose of chametz? In the... which hour? The fourth hour. Eating chametz is permitted until the fourth hour; disposing of it, until the fifth. Which hour, though? How will he calculate it? By the watch on his wrist. Simply by his watch: the fourth hour from the start of the day. All right? Say the day begins at six... What? Yes. Why? Because the proportional hours are determined by the clock for him, since he doesn’t really have proportional hours. We said he establishes his time by the clock of the country he left. But the people who stayed down in that country are still bound by sunrise and sunset, and they divide the day into proportional hours. He, up there, will just use clock hours. For him, the mitzvah now applies to portions of the day on the date he established for himself. So—

26:50 Speaker 5 That they have force—

26:51 Speaker 2 The proportional hours have no force for him, exactly. Exactly, no force, no force. In a moment we’ll get into a finer point. No force—

26:58 Speaker 5 The hour has no force?

27:00 Speaker 2 No, the hour does have force, because we said he establishes a time for himself according to the place that—

27:06 Speaker 5 Essentially, he goes by

27:07 Speaker 2 Yes. By the way, at the poles it’s the same story, only there it’s even more unusual. So what does he do? In the fourth hour, he nullifies the chametz. Why? Because the usual definition doesn’t apply. So that’s very interesting. That’s a particular difference connected to... to space, sorry. Burning the chametz is the same. The Seder night—when do you begin? He can start Kiddush for the Seder at six o’clock, meaning six in the evening. Not the sixth hour, but... yes, six in the evening. At six in the evening, he starts going by the clock. But there are specific mitzvos for which he’ll have to wait a little, have a little patience. For example, he’ll eat the matzah when it’s dark, because it says “at night.” We don’t really know—Chazal didn’t actually discuss this—but the definition of night is: wait until it’s night, because that is the time for eating it, specifically in the dark. So wait until it gets dark. When one of the signs of darkness appears, eat the matzos. [unclear] But the time to eat matzah is specifically at night. Maror, matzah, four cups, Haggadah. No, he has that. An hour and a half is easy, because in an hour and a half it makes a circuit. Roughly half and half, depending on where... broadly speaking, it depends on where he is, which location he’s in, right? Yes, of course. Burning the chametz—he has to get rid of the chametz. He can’t burn it. So render it unfit for a dog to eat—or for an astronaut to eat—but pour something on it, yes. Pour something on it. Well, those are a few interesting details, things he would encounter. In other words, this question seems far too impractical, but it’s very practical, because Eytan Stibbe’s date was changed: he took off on Friday and landed on Monday, I think. He would actually pass through the Seder night and Sefiras

29:23 Speaker 2 HaOmer. Listen to this. And Sefiras HaOmer—he would be up there for the first counting of the Omer. When do you count the Omer? Say now—I don’t know how observant he is—but suppose a spirit from Hashem suddenly came over him and he decided to observe everything meticulously. So he picks up the phone and says, “Ground, ground, do you copy? I need an answer right away: how do I count the Omer?” Sefiras HaOmer is a problem. Why? Because unlike Shabbos, it doesn’t depend on location. Sefiras HaOmer depends on what you see, and that is exactly the issue with a hefsek taharah. Hefsek taharah—that was the part where, unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately, some of my recordings were lost. Of course, [unclear], and a student asks great halachic authorities. I asked them this question about a woman, which is the same thing: there, too, [unclear], right? And there, too, there is the matter of counting. I asked three rabbis, whom I consulted throughout the process. One was my teacher and mentor, Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, may the memory of the righteous and holy be a blessing, an extraordinary Torah scholar. The second was Rabbi Bakshi-Doron, may the memory of the righteous and holy be a blessing. The third, may he be granted long and good life, was Rabbi Eliyahu Abergel, with whom I was working on various matters at the time, so I consulted him as well. I’ll mainly give you Rabbi Zalman Nechemia’s answers. Broadly speaking, we had really long, complex conversations and discussions about these matters. At first, he wanted us to consider what happens with a fast. If someone is fasting and then flies, does he have to wait twenty-six hours, or can he effectively shorten his fast to... to... what? Seven minutes, if he’s in space—or on Earth, you can shorten

31:27 Speaker 2 the fast. Just as an example, say you fast on Tisha B’Av in France. All right? Tisha B’Av is a very long fast. Or in England—when does Tisha B’Av begin in England? Around ten at night, right? That’s ten at night, which is eleven here. Ten, ten-twenty, I think, something like that. [unclear] But say it’s ten or ten-thirty and you’re in England. You begin the fast, fly to Israel, and at eight o’clock here it ends—when it’s seven over there. Your fast is over after just a few hours. Everyone else is still fasting; your friends in England have another four hours to go, and you’re already eating here. The question is whether you’re obligated to wait twenty-six hours. It’s a question... So we discussed this in various ways, but it isn’t comparable. Igros Moshe discusses this too, but it isn’t comparable. Why not? Because for a woman, the counting is fundamental. And not only is the counting fundamental; what she sees depends on what she actually sees. After all, we know there’s such a thing as a veses—a daytime period and a nighttime period, right? The timing of what she sees depends on the light around us. I’ll tell you a story you’ll never hear elsewhere, firsthand. Right when I was examining this issue, I took Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef on a tour of several IDF units, including the Kirya, and we took him down into the Pit. On any visit, people want something a little interesting, a little action, so we took him down there. I knew the Pit from... other roles I had held.

33:30 Speaker 2 I’m a rabbi, but I’ve also held other positions. I’d done a number of things there, including on the halachic side. I think—I venture to think—that I’m one of the rabbis who knows the Pit inside out: its halachic issues, as well as its operational and technological sides, because I’ve worked there in all those roles. So he arrived, and we showed him the Mitzpeh, the command center, the supreme command post. That’s where the chief of staff sits, where everyone sits and... No, you can Google “Mitzpeh”; you’ll see what it is. That’s where everyone sits and manages... manages the operations. Yes. So he gets there, and it’s some number of floors underground, and he’s already losing his sense of time a bit. He himself had also spent over an hour in the Sharon Room. At the time, the commander of the center was a woman with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and he said to her, “Down here, you have no sense of time at all.” Everyone said, “Yes, yes, down here you completely lose your sense of time.” Why? Because in combat you really do lose that sense. You arrive, say a war starts, and at first you have the adrenaline. You work forty-eight hours, I don’t know, maybe more—seventy-two hours—until you’re utterly exhausted. Say you’re a brigade commander—well, a brigade commander wouldn’t be there—but say you’re a senior commander, a major general, whatever, and you’re completely worn out. Then you go to sleep for half an hour, an hour, and come back for another three hours. You sleep another twenty minutes, come back for more, and then suddenly... Yes, yes, you find some little room, put your head down, and that’s how you run a war for a month. You just, if you stay

35:26 Speaker 2 There, you simply don’t know. If you don’t have a watch, and there are no clocks there, you have no sense of time at all. Then she hears this conversation with the... and she says to him, “Rabbi, excuse me, but believe me, my body doesn’t mislead me. I know exactly when it’s day and when it’s night, no matter how many floors below ground I am.” The rabbi asks her, “Why?” She says, “Rabbi, you know, for us women—for me—it runs like clockwork. No matter how far below ground I am, my body knows whether it’s night or day.” And this was exactly—really, this happened right after we had discussed it with him in the car. I was riding with him, and we discussed this very issue. And listen, this is exactly the question: the time of menstruation, the concern that it may begin, or the regular menstrual cycle—call it what you like—is tied to what she sees, to time, and that is relevant here. So if she sees sunlight or she sees night, that matters; that event matters. But in this case, apparently, she can see it. Then the question is: what if it’s reversed? First of all, what day is it for her? What day is it for her? Because Wednesday has ended. Now she sees the sun. Is that considered a new day for her? And you said there was a sunset, another day passed, and she gained a day, as though she had counted it. So there are many, many questions we have to adjust for. Does she simply go in reverse back to Wednesday? Or, since it says, “And she shall count for herself,” what does a woman have to do? Count the Omer. By the way, that is how it works in halachah, because there is the major question of the International Date Line and what the Chazon Ish writes about it. But in practical halachah, when it really comes down to it—

37:04 Speaker 2 Ultimately, this is how it works: I’m not concerned with what everyone else is counting. I’m concerned with what you saw, what you saw. Someone might count twice because he traveled back and forth, back and forth. In other words, each time you see night and day, night and day, each time you see a day and a night, you count. Day, night—you count. And if you crossed the date line in reverse, you might reach Shavuos on 5 Sivan. In practical halachah, they say that on 5 Sivan you must refrain from work, and on 6 Sivan you shouldn’t serve as the chazzan, because there are two festivals. One is the festival of Matan Torah, which was aligned with Shavuos, and the other is Shavuos as the fiftieth day: “On the fiftieth day, you shall have an assembly.” For him, that assembly will be on the fifth, not the sixth. It will be on the fifth and not... These are cases that come up all the time. People fly to Japan on business in the middle of Sefiras HaOmer and come back here, and they have a very substantial question about when to observe the festival here. Sometimes they observe two days of Yom Tov, and if they’re from outside Israel, they observe three days. They observe Yom Tov on the sixth with everyone else, and also... Yes. So these are very interesting questions. And so, regarding Sefiras HaOmer—and we’ll finish with this—he should count without a brachah, because we aren’t sure what day it is, and he doesn’t see day and night. We don’t know what day it really is. On the other hand, if he returns to Earth, he won’t be able to continue counting, despite... Now why can he count there? Why does his counting count? Because Tosafos in Menachos says that the day does not prevent the counting of the Omer from being valid. The day does not prevent the counting of the Omer from being valid. But when he returns to Earth—

38:43 Speaker 2 Since he will return to the normal sequence, he won’t know where he is in that sequence, and therefore he won’t be able to continue counting with a brachah. So he will continue counting without a brachah even on Earth. This is also brought in Shaar Hatziyun and in the responsum of the Das Torah, and that is the practical halachah. All this is to say: we say, “It is not in heaven,” but it really is much more comfortable to be a Jew down here. Yet this emerging reality will present us with very, very big challenges. With Hashem’s help, in the modern world we will need to know how to deal with questions like these. Maybe today it’s quite rare, but already today we have an Israeli Jew in space over Pesach, and we have a Jew who wants to go into space. He asked me about it. We’re working on a menu—literally, a menu of kosher meals for space. This isn’t theoretical; these are things I’ve been working on for a year and a half. And—and—not... He, he... No, because someone met him along the way and said something to him. He said, “I’m checking whether...” I don’t know whether that’s really the case. I really don’t know; maybe it is. But, but... I don’t even know whether he actually wanted to go up. I have no idea. But here we’re talking about a person paying forty—I think many millions of pounds. I think it’s public knowledge; look it up, it’s written there. He can afford it. How did he go up? It cost a hundred. And there are so many things. When do you put on tefillin? The laws of yichud. The laws of yichud.

40:15 Speaker 2 There are gatherings in the capsules. Do the laws of yichud apply? Well, apparently there are cameras, so perhaps there’s no yichud, or... But there are so, so many things that we’ll be able to rule on, but I need to discuss them.

40:34 Speaker 6 Which isn’t cool.

40:36 Speaker 2 Yes, but on the other hand, we do know that the laws of yichud change now that we live in a world of cameras. Today we know that a person isn’t truly alone. There’s no such thing as being completely alone. But we can discuss many things and find solutions to many things. It just goes to show that, truly, “Know Him in all your ways,” and, indeed, “If I ascend to heaven, You are there.” Baruch Hashem, we can... And this really isn’t just “If not for Your Torah, my delight...” Tomorrow an engineer at Elbit might tell him, “Come, you’ll travel just to develop something,” and suddenly he’ll need to address this question. So that’s it: we’re getting closer and closer to it. And Pesach is approaching. So first of all, with Hashem’s help, may we merit to connect heaven and earth and to deepen our understanding of halachah here on Earth and throughout the world, because Hakadosh Boruch Hu reveals the light of halachah in His world. That’s it. If we’ve delved into Torah and learned, that’s a good thing. And with Hashem’s help, as we said, may these words be an elevation for the soul of the truly pure Daniel Chaim, who left his soul in purity. Anyone who saw him in his final months knows that it was truly in purity. That’s not an exaggeration. It’s simply so. Just light. Just light. That’s it. May we hear good news. Thank you very much, everyone. May we hear good news.